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4 months ago

I'm not sure if you have any specific budget, but Deathmark should definitely be switched out for Fatal Push if you are going to keep removal in your sideboard, as it hits a much larger percent of Modern creatures and is an instant. My first suggestion would be to remove all the basic swamps from your deck and replace them with 4 spells. Since your average cmc is about 1, 24 lands is way too many and you will most likely flood every match. I would replace them with Abbot of Keral Keep because it fits well with your reanimator theme and helps you dig through your deck for more damage, plus it has prowess so he can be a decent beatstick as well if your opponents don't keep an eye on it. A fun card could be the newish Olivia, Mobilized for War, as she can give Vexing Devil +1/+1 and haste for the small price of a discarded card AFTER your opponent decides whether or not to take the damage. However, she does cost 3, so it may be awkward to play her. Instead of Spike Jester, I would put in either Shattering Spree (against Affinity), and instead of Rain of Gore I would put in Skullcracks because they aren't dead cards if your opponents end up not gaining life. That's all I can think of right now, otherwise this deck looks really fun to play!

6 months ago

Abbot of Keral Keep is at most a 2-of in a deck with so many relatively expensive spells as this one (you'd rarely want to play it turn 3 in the hope of hitting a 1-mana spell, right?). 2 more Thoughtseize would be pretty good, though.

Implement of Malice... I suspect that it is too expensive in mana, but it trades for a card from opponents hand, replenishes itself, and if you could find a little bit more artifact, it could enable delirium, so you could play Whispers of Emrakul instead of Wrench Mind.

Noxious Gearhulk also fits the description: You get a decently sized creature, kills another creature, and gets a bunch of life. Only problem is the cost (at 6 mana it's probably over the top of the curve). Actaully, if your curve went that high, you could add the titans too.

6 months ago

7 months ago

I like the list. Personally, I much prefer Mana Leak to remand given the number of matchups I face that just don't care about getting remanded (soo many 1 drops).

Have you given thought to Collected Company with Abbot of Keral Keep? as a value engine it functions acceptably, and although it calls for a higher creature count, it plays nicely on the midrange plan. Options like Eternal Witness and similar RUG value cards are all also there.

If you're committed to the controllier end of things though, more board wipes. Just, more wipes, or a sideboard with 4 Echoing Truth and tools for handling the innundation of aggressive decks.

7 months ago

I wonder how well the X-spells and Reverberate will work here. Burn generally wants to be able to operate on as few lands as possible and end the game quickly, and these all need you to draw a lot of lands over many turns to become useful. They also have an additional anti-synergy with Shard Volley which wants to eat any extra lands you find.

I personally like to have at least two Magma Jet to scry land away or dig for whatever I need, and I like anything with the name "searing," such as Searing Blood or Searing Blaze (honorable mention to Smash to Smithereens), though these are sometimes better for sideboards until you know whether your opponent is playing valid targets.

9 months ago

No red deck is really complete without a full set of Lightning Bolts. You just don't get it better than 3 damage for 1 mana, to any target at almost any time (it is exactly as Lightning Strike, but at half cost).

Your creatures belong in two different decks: One that goes wide, with a lot creatures that you then buff (Memnite and Signal Pest) and one that burns opponent to death (Guttersnipe and Spark Elemental). Since these two plans actually are rather different, drawing a couple of cards from both means that you can't carry out either of them. If you want to go wide, you need more smaller creatures or tokens (Dragon Fodder and Mogg War Marshal are good cards for this strategy). Tyrant of Discord has no business at all being in a deck with only 20 lands, since you plan on the game being over long before turn 14, which is when you'd be most likely to play it.

I've never really liked Guttersnipe, since it's a 3 mana creatures, that doesn't do anything on its own... and it belongs in a fast deck. That is, a fast deck where you don't mind spending your 3rd turn just playing a rather small creature, and not doing anything else. Of course you could wait until you have some more mana, so you could play some spells in the same turn... but what are you then doing until then? My guess is, that you'd then just end up playing the very same spells that you'd otherwise want to use for triggering Guttersnipe, and when you finally play it, you are more or less empty-handed. But if it has to be, you should play "free" spells, like Mutagenic Growth and Gut Shot... and since you'd then be playing free spells anyway, you might as well pick up the best prowess creature for fast deck - Monastery Swiftspear - and maybe you could get some real value out of Abbot of Keral Keep, since it both has prowess and gives you a card.

Anyway, you should probably make up your mind in regards to creatures, and stick to one plan.

Shrine of Burning Rage also likes free spells, but only as long as they are red... I'm not too happy having 4 of it in a deck. If there's one on the opening hand, it's fine, but drawing it later is a really under-powered draw. Perhaps it's better in decks, that can get rid of it - like if you played a looter (you know - "draw a card-discard a card") of some kind.

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